| AFTERNOON SESSION
Monday, November 17, 2003 1:22 p.m. THE COURT: Record show everyone is present. Your next witness, Mr. Harris? MR. HARRIS: Detective Hendee. HENRY DODGE HENDEE, called as a witness on behalf of the People, being first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows: THE CLERK: Please have a seat, put the microphone on. DIRECT EXAMINATION MR. HARRIS: Q. Detective, can you spell your full -- tell us what your full name is and spell your last name for the record? A. Henry Dodge Hendee, H-E-N-D-E-E. Q. And what is your occupation? A. I'm a detective with Modesto Police Department. Q. How long have you been employed with the Modesto Police Department? A. I have been employed with them since October, 1987. So about 15 years. Prior to that, I have five and a half years with another agency. Q. All right. I want to direct your attention back to December 27th of 2002 and ask if you were working in your capacity as a detective in the service of a search warrant at 1027 North Emerald, Suite B1? A. Yes, I was. Q. Did you -- can you describe for the Court briefly what that location is? A. 127 North Emerald, Suite Number B1, is a warehouse complex located on the west side of Emerald, on North Emerald. It's actually two warehouses, one that runs east and west directly next to the street, and the other one runs north and south to the west of the first building. Scott Peterson's warehouse was the furthestmost office or warehouse on that second wing, the one that runs north and south. Q. And that location, that's here in Stanislaus County? A. Yes, it is. Q. As the -- as your assignment that particular day, were you given some particular task at that location with regards to that search warrant? A. Yes, I was. Q. And what was that? A. I was appointed as the search warrant team leader for that assignment. Q. And at some point in time did you go inside that particular warehouse? A. Yes, I did. Q. Did you notice if there were -- let's get to the point. Was there a boat inside? A. Yes, there was. Q. Can you describe for the Court what you saw with regards to that boat? A. The boat was aluminum 14-foot Game Fisher boat, it was on top of a trailer. It was in the northeast end of the warehouse, which would be up near the rollup door. There was a 15-horsepower motor, was a Game Fisher brand as well, on the end of the boat. The boat was -- had a capacity for 4 persons or 500 pounds. Very small boat. Q. Anything nearby the boat? A. Yes. Q. What was nearby the boat? A. There were -- there was a trailer, a flat pull trailer with wooden planks on top of it. There was a lot of product -- or pallets with Trade Corp. product throughout the warehouse stacked on top, sometimes stacked on top of each other going up fairly high. There was a forklift in the middle of the warehouse. And next to the boat, there was tools, some shelves, and some chemical products and so forth down below that. Q. In the area of the boat and this trailer, would you say it was tight access or wide access, wide space? MR. GERAGOS: Objection. Vague. THE COURT: Sustained. MR. HARRIS: Q. Can you describe for us how much room was around the trailer and the boat? A. It was pretty tight spaced. In front of the boat and in front of the trailer, there was a little more wide open area. But in between the boat and the wall and in between the boat and the trailer, it was a fairly tight space, maybe -- if memory serves me right, maybe a person or two could fit in there in between. But it was fairly tight. Q. And as part of your assignment of being the manager of this particular search warrant, did you start to make notations to yourself or either in a report about items that you thought were of evidentiary value? A. Yes, I did. MR. HARRIS: I'd like to have marked as next in order -- THE CLERK: 140. THE COURT: 140? THE CLERK: Yes. 140. MR. HARRIS: 140. (Whereupon, People's Exhibit 140 was marked for identification.) MR. HARRIS: Q. Detective, I'm going to show you what's been marked now as People's Number 140 for identification, ask you to look at that for a second, and let us know if you recognize it? A. Yes, I do. Q. Can you tell us, tell the Court what that is? A. This is a photograph taken of the trailer, the pull trailer, the flat pull trailer that was in the warehouse next to the boat, and it shows a picture of a number of evidence placards that I had placed onto the trailer. Basically, I see 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 31. And it highlights -- MR. GERAGOS: There will be an objection. The document speaks for itself. He's identified everything that's visible on the picture. THE COURT: He's already described it. I'll stop him there. I'll sustain it after that point. MR. HARRIS: Q. All right. Detective, the photograph that you have, People's Number 140, does that accurately depict the area of the trailer that you've described? A. Yes. Q. Now, looking up here at the diagram behind you that is People's -- looks like People's 87, do you recognize this diagram by Detective House? A. Yes, I do. Q. And does that diagram depict the general overall location of the warehouse that we're talking about? A. Yes, it does. Q. Where in the diagram, if you can describe for the Court, is what's depicted in that photograph in front of you? A. The top of the picture is, for this purposes, north. And if you see this big flat square box with a whole lot of little small circles, at the top of the box, that's what's depicted in this picture here. Those are the item numbers that I previously mentioned. Q. So what's depicted in 140 shows on People's Number 87 in about the upper right third, more towards the middle of that diagram? A. Yes. The only difference is that placards are numbered 35, 36, and on this picture they say 135, 136. We didn't have placards that went up that high. So everything that's placarded with a number here, actually, you add a hundred to it to make it so that it wouldn't be confused with evidence that was recovered at the house earlier. Q. All right. So with regards to the trailer that you've described for us and those particular placards depicted in People's Number 140, what did -- describe for the Court what those placards represented. MR. GERAGOS: Objection. Calls for speculation. The placards are pictured in the picture, and there's no further explanation needed. The document speaks for itself. THE COURT: I assume they represent a location or something. Overruled. THE WITNESS: What the placard, some of them represent, 35, 36, 37, 38 and 39 represent an area on this trailer where there had been cement powder, it looks like cement powder poured out onto the railer or spilling out onto parts of the trailer. These placards represent an area where there was a little less powder, a voided area, if you will, something had probably or most likely, in my opinion, been there -- MR. GERAGOS: Objection. Nonresponsive. No foundation. Motion to strike. THE COURT: That part is stricken, what he thinks. He can just testify to what he saw. MR. HARRIS: Q. Okay. Did that describe everything that you were talking about? A. Well, they -- these placards represent a voided area. Q.The gray powder that you're describing, was there anything that led you to come to some type of belief as to what that was? A. Yes. Q. And what was that? A. Excuse me. In the boat, identified there as evidence item number 143, was a cement anchor or weight that was inside the boat, and that was obviously made of cement, and it -- and we tested it to see if it fit in this picture, which is identified as evidence item number 128. On the trailer, there was a plastic, one-gallon, clear pitcher, and the weight apparently was made from that pitcher, it fit perfectly into the mold -- MR. GERAGOS: Objection. Calls for speculation. Motion to strike. THE COURT: That part that's his opinion is stricken. MR. HARRIS: Q. Okay. Without giving us the opinion, did you take that weight and hold it up, match it to or do something with regards to that clear plastic pitcher? A. The weight was placed into the pitcher. Q. Did it fit? A. Yes, it did. Q. Now, the weight that you found, where was that when you originally found it? A. In the boat. Q. Was there any type of rope or anything tied to it? A. No. The weight has a metal rebar hook at the top, it had been bent and encased in the cement weight. Q. Did you also look kind of in and around that weight in the boat? A. Yes. Q. Did you notice anything around the weight? A. Yeah, there were other items of evidence that we collected from there, but one of those was a pair of pliers. Q. And when you first saw the pair of pliers, where was it? A. It was underneath the middle bench seat that runs the width of the boat, it was underneath that and partially behind the metal center anchoring support bracket, if you will, for the seat. Q. Now, in front of you, do you see a photograph of the boat with the pair of pliers in it? A. Yes, I do. Q. And what exhibit number is that? A. I think it's 88 maybe, People's 88. Q. Looking at People's Number 88, does that photograph depict the insides of the boat as you saw them -- A. Yes. Q. -- on that particular day that we're talking about? A. Yes, it does. Q. And can you see the pliers in that photograph? A. Yes, I do. Q. Did you collect those pair of pliers? A. Yes, I did. Q. What did you do with the pair of pliers? A. Well, at the point that I was going into the boat and putting down placards for items that I was gonna collect as evidence, I picked up this pair of pliers, and upon immediately picking them up, I noticed that there was a hair in the end of the pliers looping through it. I pointed that out to the other people that were near me, Denise Ducot immediately took a photograph of it, and within a matter of five minutes, I placed it into an evidence bag. Q. Looking -- is there another photograph that depicts the pair of pliers more close up? A. Yes. It's People's Exhibit, I think, 139. Q. And can you describe for the Court what that is in 139? A. Yes, it is, People's 139 is a picture of the item number 44, the placard number 44. And above the placard, I am holding the pliers, and you can see a hair that loops into the pliers. Q. Now, when you say when the hair looped into the pliers, describe for the Court what you mean by that. A. Well, as I recall it, the hair went through the pliers, and then a bit of it looped back in towards it. So there's a little bit of a loop in there, and then it had gone underneath the prong or the needle-nose plier part, so that the hair went through there, and I think it had looped back, as I recall, just barely into the prong (indicates). And the hair was about five to six inches in length, as I recall. Q. Now, you were describing that, and you were gesturing something. Let's just go back and see if I've got this right for the record. You were using, I can't recall which hand it was, but one hand up, and you were holding your index and middle finger apart almost like you would do a scissors or -- A. Yeah. Q. -- to represent the pliers? A. Yeah. Q. And then you were representing the hair with a finger from your other hand, putting it in between the teeth of the -- A. Yes. Q. Okay. Did you -- you indicated that this hair was about five to six inches long. Did you measure it at that time? A. No, I didn't. Q. Why not? A. Well, because as soon as I picked it up, I thought, well, if this belongs to Laci, this could be fairly significant. So the first thing I wanted to do -- MR. GERAGOS: Objection. Motion to strike. THE COURT: That comment is stricken. MR. HARRIS: Q. Did you measure it? A. No, I did not. I placed it into the envelope. Q. Now, you say you placed it in the envelope. Describe the process of getting the hair into the envelope. A. Okay. Immediately after it was taken, this photograph was taken, we got a four-by-six-inch envelope, and brought it over to me, and I never left the boat. I put the pliers into the -- first of all, I opened up the envelope, made sure it was brand new, that there was nothing in it, put the pliers into it, moved the handles apart, pulled the pliers back out, saw that there was no hair attached, looked in there, could see at least what appeared to be one hair, and then sealed it up. Q. To get the hair into the envelope, did you have to -- did you have to open the pliers? A. Yes. Q. When you were looking at the hair on that particular day, and also visible in the photograph 139, did you notice if there was anything on, attached, or associated with that hair? MR. GERAGOS: Objection. Compound. THE COURT: Sustained. MR. HARRIS: Q. On that particular day, did you notice anything attached to the hair? A. Yes, I did. Q. What was that? A. Something was stuck to the end of the hair. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but it didn't -- it appeared to be something foreign, didn't appear to be part of the hair. Q. When you look at photograph 139, can you see what it was that was attached to the hair? A. Yeah. Actually, you can see two little things that were attached to the hair. The first one is the larger, more significant one down by the placard itself, and the second one, you can just barely see it right up next to the nose, needle-nose pliers itself. Q. And could you describe what that second thing was? A. To me, it appeared to be consistent with the first larger one, but it was smaller in size, much smaller than the other one. Q. When you put this item into the envelope, you indicated that you closed it up. Did you do more than close it at that time? A. Yes, I did. Q. What did you do? A. I closed it up, used the metal clasp to close it up, got out of the boat, went to the crime scene van, put tape on it so that it wouldn't fall out of there. Q. Was there any type of notation as to case number or item number, initials? A. Yes. Q. If you'd look at the next photograph. And do you see a photograph that bears that envelope or -- A. I see the backside of the envelope, yes. THE COURT: The number of the photograph? THE WITNESS: 134. MR. HARRIS: Q. Looking at 134, does that depict the envelope that we've been talking about? A. Yes, it does. The back side, yes. Q. You were describing a number for it. Just so, again, that we're clear about this, depicted in the photograph of the pliers, is there a placard of the number 44? A. Yes. Q. And from what you've told us already, did you add a number of 100 to that? A. Yes, we did. Everything that was placarded at the warehouse with a number, what we did as far as evidence items number, just gave it 100 more than that, so, again, to distinguish it from evidence recovered at the house. Q. And the pair of pliers, that number was what? A. 44. Q. So it would be 144? A. The pliers were 144, correct. Q. The hair that came from the pliers, what number did you assign to that? A. 144A. Q. And any reason for the A or some other number? A. Because it was a separate piece of evidence associated from that one item. Typically when that happens, we just give it a subset number or a letter, A, B, C, D, E. There was only one other item collected from that plier. That was the hair. So it became 144A. Q. Now, at some point in time were you -- did you talk with or consult with other detectives in the case about whether there might have been something, a root with regard to that hair? PRELIM PAGE 10 HOME INDEX LACI SCOTT TRIAL ALIBI-WITNESS LIST |
| PRELIMINARY HEARING DAY 10 DETECTIVE DODGE HENDEE |
| LACI & CONNER May The Truth Be Told |
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| Partial Transcript |